


Waiting For You

by RemixConstellation



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gwaine returns, I mean, Lady of the Lake - Freeform, M/M, No roses, Some characters are dead, they kiss, this is Merlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 14:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16578407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemixConstellation/pseuds/RemixConstellation
Summary: Time is ticking ever-on, time is marching forward. But Merlin never was a soldier, never fought for war. Merlin’s battles where his own; he always stood alone. Now Merlin stands before the canons, watching seconds blow. He’s standing as the minutes past and as the gaps grow wide and he standing tall and standing proud, but he waves no banner proud. Time may be ticking ever on, but patience will run out.





	Waiting For You

There are gaps in Merlin’s world. Gaps he cannot fill. Strange and empty places where he thinks friends might once’ve stood. Pretty little crimson stains, beating like still hearts. Dainty little beating stains, coating Merlin’s world.

He is searching for something, searching long and far and high and low. He is searching for something solid, something that doesn’t waver in the glow of the mid-morning chill. He is searching, for a smile. For a grin he can’t quite recall. A roguish twist of rosy lips, gleaming in mid-morning chill. 

Promises. Promises he remembers. Someone’s coming back. Someone bathed in golden light, someone meant to do, well, meant to do a thing quite grand. But promises mean nothing in this grey and gaping world.  _ Promises mean nothing when the wrong ones to return. _

Merlin floats between the gaps. He dips in and out, the world just beyond his grasp. In the midday warmth he finds, nothing’s quite as solid as the empty space beside his heart. 

Laughter, laughter all around. He hears the laughter round his head, laughter like a crown. Laughter not a golden thing but a dainty silver band, set just above his ears. 

He is searching, searching for that tinkling bell. Searching for a sound that lands right above his brow. A giggling sound that knocked a man, knocked him down to size. Tinkling raucuse wounded bells that rattle round his head. Merlin stuffs his ears with fog, stuffs his mouth with mist. He stuffs his belly with new thoughts and fills his brain with all he can’t forget. 

There’s a pulse beneath the empty space, a pulse Merlin wants to find. A pulse that throbs inside his cheek, a pulse that taste like hope.

He asked the lady in the lake, asked her where it was. But the lady in the lake can’t say; she’s waiting on her kind. Merlin wants to find this king, wants to stab him all anew. Once to rend his bones apart, this king that stole his world. 

The lady in the lake waves her finger in his face.  _ Unfair Merlin, this you know. Unfair the grudge you bear. You want your dainty king come home, want him on his throne.  _

Merlin burned that damned throne. Turned the gold back into stone. Merlin buried solid space between blood-painted rocks. He took a King already dead, took his sister’s head. He took these royal-painted bones and turned them into ash. He painted his eyes and painted his hair and painted his world with their gaps. 

Time is ticking ever-on, time is marching forward. But Merlin never was a soldier, never fought for war. Merlin’s battles where his own; he always stood alone. Now Merlin stands before the canons, watching seconds blow. He’s standing as the minutes past and as the gaps grow wide and he standing tall and standing proud, but he waves no banner proud. Time may be ticking ever on, but patience will run out.

Merlin’s learned a thing or two, drifting between the space. He’s learned about that dreadful lady, congealing in her lake. Learned about her love affair, with her dainty queen. Learned about a sister proud, who ate he breather’s heart. Learned about a sister, about a lady in a lake, learned about a key they kept, guarding slime-gilded gates.

And Merlin knows about a key, wrapped in a mother’s glow. Merlin held his mother’s love, once between his hands. Merlin’s got a key his own, a key that he can mold. 

If the lady in the lake will hold, if a king can grow so bold. If beneath the glass lake, where all of Merlin’s world is held. If the gaps inside his world, the spaces he won’t fit must grow. Merlin’s hate must glow. He’ll rend that green-covered-gold, he’ll drip it down his hands. He’ll feast on rosey coverings, dig bones between his teeth. 

Merlin roars, mountains cry. They demand what he is owed. A single pulse around the world, a constant fading thrum. The lady deep inside her lake, ice growing in her veins, this dainty lady of the lake, she roars, out cries the mountains, rises from her place. And Merlin knows this lonely soul, collecting all his friends.    
Merlin held her once before, held her in his arms. He has no sword and he has no axe and he’s never worn his armor. But Merlin raises one broad hand, lifts his chin real high. His voice is no dainty laugh, no silver singing bell. But when he whispers to that crown, all the world can hear. “I want you to give him back, return to me what’s mine. I want my love, I want my heart, I want all that you have taken fast.”

That damned lady rotting in the lake, she stands tall, as tall she can, with years of rot her cape. “You’ll never take what you are due, never earn what you claimed owed. You abandoned your post, you let your kingdom fall. You burned a castle to the ground for a boy that wasn’t your betrothed.” Her skin is pale, her skin sloughs off, the air dries her out. And Merlin knows that if he waits, she’ll be forced back below. 

But Merlin is so tired of waiting, so tired of being alone. “Jst please this, do tell me where. I know he is near by. His laughter aches, it weighs my bones, you can keep the rest.” 

And this a deal that she can bear, a deal she weighs with honor. This a deal that won’t undo, all they both wrote down. This is a deal that saves the world, lets Camelot stay as rest. 

“You must give up what you have left, that is the cost of his pulse.” 

And it’s a dirty, stinking, rotten deal, one that cost him dear. But Merlin takes his extra years, takes the magic in his soul, he pours it into a festered lake and watches as it clears. 

“Follow the sound,” a pretty lady says and Merlin turns away. 

 

It takes him months and it takes him years, and his beard shows hints of grey. But he’s standing in an old tavern when laughter-bells begin to ring. He turns and he looks and he’s greeted by a simple grin. Bright brown eyes and tousled curls and knuckles scarred and red. “Merlin, doll, there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere.”

Merlin grabs him, grips him tight. He slams their faces, bits his lips. Kisses him for every meal he’s given up, runs his hands ‘cross solid planes. He’s real and he’s here and Merlin says, “Gwaine my love, where have you been?” 

“Waiting, Merlin, waiting for you.”


End file.
